Anixter unites online offering

Distie spruces up purchasing site for resellers

Distributor Anixter is aiming to improve its online dealings with resellers by uniting all of its online services under one umbrella, after completing a project with VAR Allnet.

Lisa O'Keefe, e-business manager at Anixter UK, said about 100 resellers currently use the distributor's online purchasing, with 400 more registered but not yet taking advantage of it.

"We introduced eAnixter a few years ago but we have added new capabilities. It would be confusing to keep them separate," she said.

The firm is branding its online offering for resellers as eVantage, and is aiming to attract more resellers to the service, claiming it will save them money and time.

Mark Bevan, supply chain manager at Allnet, a reseller that buys from Anixter, said the system had grown in response to inefficiencies in buying products from distribution.

"We always have large projects running, and realised we were doing a lot of double entry, such as putting an order into our system, and transferring it to Anixter's system to order products from them," said Bevan.

"We got the two departments - ours and Anixter's - together and looked at a range of solutions. We settled on an XML-based system."

Bevan added that it took six months to get the system running, and VARs signing up now will benefit from the initial work with shorter integration times.

The system will offer such services as purchasing, document processing and a catalogue. The online offering includes products from Avaya, Hewlett Packard, Nortel and Allied Telesyn.